INTERSESSIONAL WORKING GROUPS ON TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND FINANCE:

There are two intersessional meetings being planned
for the period 22 February - 4 March 1994. Ad hoc open-ended
working groups on financial flows and mechanisms and on technology
transfer and cooperation, established at the CSD session last June,
will each meet for three-five days, depending on the workload. The
working group on technology transfer is expected to meet first.
These working groups will be composed of governments, which will
nominate experts in order to assist the Commission in its work. The
findings of these two working groups will be reported back to the
Commission. NGOs and major groups that are accredited to the CSD
will be able to participate in the meetings of these working
groups. Bearing in mind the expert nature of these working groups,
their outcome will not be a negotiated text but an agreed list of
policy options/recommendations for the consideration of the CSD at
its 1994 session.

The provisional agenda for the ad hoc working group on technology
is as follows: after election of a Chair and adoption of the
Agenda, the working group will perform an overview of the current
situation and trends relating to the transfer of environmentally
sound technology (EST) in the context of Chapter 34 of Agenda 21
and in accordance with decision E of the first substantive session
of the CSD. Issues for discussion may include: appropriate economic
policies; trade related issues of technology transfer (including
intellectual property rights); creation of a positive investment
climate; respective roles of and interaction between the public and
private sectors in the transfer of technology and ways and means to
promote the transfer of EST that are publicly owned or in the
public domain, as well as privately owned; and the usefulness of
setting up information systems, clearing houses, and technology
centers. The next agenda item is called "Access to information on
EST" and will include discussion on (a) information on privately
owned/public domain/publicly owned technologies, including state of
the art technologies; (b) priority needs of developing countries;
(c) new initiatives -- data banks, information systems, referral
services; and (d) relevant experience gained in the use of
particular technologies. This section is supposed to focus on the
sectoral issues currently under review by the CSD. The last two
agenda items deal with capacity building and financial arrangements
and technological partnership -- including the removal of barriers
and provision of incentives.

The provisional agenda for the ad hoc working group on finance
contains the following items: Election of the Chair; Adoption of
the Agenda; and Overview of financial resources and mechanisms in
the context of Chapter 33 of Agenda 21 and in accordance with
decision F of the first substantive session of the CSD. The next
item will address ways and means to raise the effectiveness of the
use of existing financial resources and to mobilize new and
additional resources from all sources (domestic/external;
private/public; traditional/innovative). This discussion will also
consider international policy instruments, such as debt relief,
terms of trade, commodity prices, market access and private foreign
investment as well as to review mechanisms for innovated financing
in the context of paragraph 33.16 of Agenda 21. The working group
will also consider national policy instruments and specific
experiences and initiatives in the sectors under review. The next
item on the agenda is "Requirements, availability and adequacy of
financial resources and mechanisms in the sectors under review:
assessment and methodological questions." The last item is
"Specific policy options for the mobilization of financial
resources towards a balanced implementation of all aspects of
Agenda 21 under consideration by the CSD in 1994, in the light of
the discussion of the above items."